An online video of two Boy Scouts of America leaders knocking over a 170m-year-old rock formation in a Utah state park has touched off worldwide outrage, state officials said on Friday, and the two men may face charges.

The video was posted on YouTube showing scout leader Glenn Taylor dislodging the massive rock free from its tiny perch in Goblin Valley state park as Dave Hall films him while singing and laughing.

"We, we have now modified Goblin Valley!" Hall shouts into the camera. "A new Goblin Valley exists with this boulder down here at the bottom!"

The rock formation, known as a "goblin," dates to the late Jurassic era and is one of many that give the desert park a surreal appearance that draws visitors from around the world.

The video has been viewed more than 2m times since it was uploaded to YouTube by the Salt Lake Tribune newspaper on Thursday. The Utah state parks director, Fred Hayes, said his office had been inundated with angry calls and emails.

"Literally from around the world," Hayes said. "Folks who have either been there [to Goblin Valley state park] or even just seen pictures of it. The South-western desert has a lot of appeal for a lot of people and they are just outraged."

Hayes said authorities first became aware of the video when a visitor posted a link to it on the state parks website, asking if such activity was legal. Prosecutors in Emery County will determine if charges would be filed, he said.

“BE PREPARED”

The two scout leaders told the Deseret News they toppled the boulder because they thought it posed a danger to children who might be walking by – an explanation that the state parks director greeted with some scepticism.

"Neither one of us were out there intending to do illegal activity," Hall said. "It just made sense to us at the time – remove the danger so that we don't have to hear about somebody dying."

Hayes said park rangers walked through the valley daily and had never considered the boulder to be a danger, noting that it took considerable effort for Taylor to shove it over.

"That's a real leap in logic for me to get there, based on what I see in the video," he said. "I can't get inside their head but that's not the way it looks to me."

A Boy Scouts of America spokesman said the organisation was reviewing the matter and would take appropriate action.

"We are shocked and disappointed by this reprehensible behavior. For more than a century, the Boy Scouts of America has been a leader in conservation – from stewardship to sustainability," Boy Scouts spokesman Deron Smith said.

"The isolated actions of these individuals are absolutely counter to our beliefs and what we teach," he said.

Sickening bravado...They got their fifteen minutes of fame; now, we will see how they like a lifetime of infamy. What punishment to you inflict on these people I haven't a clue. It's just heartbreaking.

The behavior of the men is not in any way shape or form the policy of the Boy Scouts of America who's motto outdoor code As an American, I will do my best to - Be clean in my outdoor manners. Be careful with fire.Be considerate in the outdoors.Be conservation minded.

American exceptionalism is the theory that the United States is "qualitatively different" from other states.[2] In this view, U.S. exceptionalism stems from its emergence from a revolution, becoming what political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset called "the first new nation"[2] and developing a uniquely American ideology, "Americanism", based on liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, republicanism, populism and laissez-faire.[3] This ideology itself is often referred to as "American exceptionalism."[3]

The theory of exceptionalism can be traced to Alexis de Tocqueville, the first writer to describe the United States as "exceptional" in 1831 and 1840

Rather than mock and ridicule you could seek to educate and enlighten.

“There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all.”

Standing proudly on the side of an English hill, its religious roots go back 2,000 years. But a single night of vandalism has left an ancient site of pilgrimage in splinters. The Holy Thorn Tree of Glastonbury has been chopped down in what is being seen by some as a deliberately anti-Christian act.

Muzzies blow up ancient Buddhist shrines. Romans sack Herod's Temple. The Grimwalds knock over Stonehenge like dominos. The devil is simply the anthropomorphism of entropy.

What happened at Joseph’s Tomb in October 2000?Tomb of Joseph Under AttackIn the early days of the al-Aqsa Intifada, on the morning of October 7, 2000, Israel withdrew the small contingent of IDF border policemen who had been guarding the site of the Tomb of the Patriarch Joseph and its Yeshiva. The holy site was located in Shechem in Samaria, the town the Arabs call “Nablus”. Over the preceeding days, the Tomb had been attacked with gunfire, stones, and firebombs. The IDF defenders in the compound withstood the attacks and stopped several attempts by armed Palestinians to break in. An IDF border policemen was wounded, and the heavy rioting prevented his evacuation for treatment in time to save his life.

In order to prevent further loss of life and to lower tensions in the area, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak authorized the temporary evacuation of the site, based on the agreement of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to safeguard the location, in accordance with their obligations under the Oslo Accords to protect holy sites, Jewish and Christian, and ensure access by all. The PA also pledged to prevent any vandalism and to return the Tomb to its original state after the violence settled down.

The PA pledge was brazenly violated about two hours after the Israeli evacuation, when a Palestinian Arab mob entered the Tomb compound and began to systematically destroy everything in sight, including all remnants of the Yeshiva. The furniture and books that were left behind were burned by the mob. The Palestinian police stood by, failing to prevent any of these violent activities, despite their committment to guard the Tomb. Within hours, Joseph’s Tomb was reduced to a smoldering heap of rubble. Within two days, as an Associated Press dispatch reported, “the dome of the tomb was painted green and bulldozers were seen clearing the surrounding area,” as the Palestinian Arabs sought to transform the biblical Joseph’s resting place into a Moslem holy site.

“A freedom fighter learns the hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle ,and the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a point, one can only fight fire with fire”

If you think Texas wind power is a big deal, you ain’t see nothing yet. The state is just weeks away from pushing the start button on 3,600 miles of new transmission lines that will bring 18,500 megawatts of wind power from sparsely populated West Texas to urban centers including Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin. Called CREZ for Competitive Renewable Energy Zone, the new lines will make Texas the runaway leader in wind transmission.

Ironically, some of that energy will also go to speed the development of fossil fuel production in parts of Texas, particularly from shale formations. . . . . . . . . . . . let’s take a look at how CREZ is already spurring new investment in . . . . . . .

The few places in the Sun Belt where the cost to produce a MWh using photovoltaics have reached rough parity with hydro or natural gas are not where the US has located industry, and we won't likely shift while natural gas from fracking is dirt cheap. They remain expensive feel-good demo projects, sort of like the Apollo moonshots.

If you would spend just a few minutes studying the natural decline rates of fracked natural gas wells, and the escalating costs of same you would understand just how important it is to start building out these renewable projects

(which, btw, will just get cheaper as time goes on, unlike nat gas which will just get more expensive.)

They predicted the world would be in chaos on Y2K too. Always in motion, the future. Difficult to see. One thing remains constant: In a free market the best remedy for high prices is high prices. Gasoline is approaching the $3.00 level here, on the Left Coast, in a traditionally high markup state due to taxes and regulations.

The Hoover dam was not built by the "free market"The Grand Coulee dam was not built by the "free market".

The "free market" does not provide for safety and security.The "free market" does not deliver Persian Gulf oil to New Orleans refineries.

The "free market" is a false construct.It does not exist, not here, not there, not anywhere in the technologically advanced parts of the world.Anywhere that there is currency, there is no "free market".

DR, suppose you're a captain of industry. I've got this nice power in Duluth powered by Bakken farts for $80 per megawatt-hour, and you can float your widgets down Lake Superior on the Edmund Fitzgerald II. Rufus has this power in Socorro, New Mexico powered by the sun for only $160 per MWh but you gotta truck your shit to market using $4.00 a gallon diesel. Choose wisely.

Then, Ms T, by utilizing Fusion powered electricity and fusion powered liquid fuels ...... the Us can begin exporting fracked petroleum to those countries that are behind US on the energy consumption curve.

Those countries that are not exceptional and did or could not adapt quickly to the changing political, economic and security environment of the 21st Century.

More concerned with "Saving" than with "Earning".More concerned about "Conservation of Assets" than with "Growing the Business"

The choices are pretty clear.Do we bask in yesterday's glory, while our posteriors grow fat resting upon our laurelsOr step boldly into the future, because it is ours to grasp, to hold and to deliver to our own posterity.

There are millions of productive acres, that lay fallow, that the Federals pay folk to leave that way.

Switch grass and sweet sorghum both grow in less than prime environments, both are drought resistant.The US could take $4 trillion dollars out of the Balance of Payments deficit and keep that wealth churning in our own economy ....... rather than sending it to the Wahhabi.

WE need one simple universal law. Any president that conducts any war loses his pension.It’s the least they can do for their country

President Grant conducted a war against slavers (albeit before he was President) and never had a pension. He came down with throat cancer from all those cigars, and had to write his memoirs, with Mark Twain as his patron, just to provide for Lady Julia. And I wouldn't have suggested Truman lose his pension for wrapping up the Big One.

Why in the world would the US choose to remain dependent upon the Saudi Arabians, when an alternative presents itself?

Ah, the old "US is dependent on Saudi Arabia" trope. We get 18% of our crude from the KSA.

Oct 15 (Reuters) - The United States has overtaken Saudi Arabia to become the world's biggest oil producer as the jump in output from shale plays has led to the second biggest oil boom in history, according to leading U.S. energy consultancy PIRA

Thank you DR, I stand corrected, partially. Cost per megawatt-hour of solar remains at least a factor of two above hydro, gas, and coal. I'm not interested in big central projects run by utilities anyway. Homes that drop off the grid because they make 100% of their own power, that's more my thing.

In other words, solar (photovoltaic) starts at almost twelve cents and ranges up to thirty-one cents per kilowatt-hour, before factoring in the transmission costs. Solar (thermal) is new, but Australia has it at about nine cents. Sticker shock for someone from up here in Teresita/Bobby Fudd land where we get our juice from dams.

Your costs should rise to cover those not as fortunate to have received 80 years of Federal libation, share the wealth, share the pain.

Washington is one of those blue states which is a net tax revenue payer, rather than a net tax revenue receiver like most of the Bible Belt. Raise our power costs to redress the historical subsidies, and no more airplanes, Kenworth trucks, Starbucks coffee, Amazon, and Windows. Then we have have our hands out with EBT cards in them like they do in Mississippi.

Europe only dreams of having the same mechanisms we do in the United States for balancing prosperity. Right now the disparity between borrowing states and lending states is leading inexorably to a shattering of the Eurozone, despite any lipstick they manage to put on those PIIGS in the interim.

Then-Vice President Dick Cheney was so paranoid that terrorists would hack into his implanted defibrillator and kill him that in 2007 he had his doctor disable the lifesaving device's wireless function, according to a new report.

Paranoia ...

When there is nothing to fear, but fear itself.... and it still gets the better of you.

Typical anti-semtic, jew hatred is part and parcel here and is endorsed and allowed.

Nobody here hates Jews, We don't like the sloppy reasoning that tries to equate anti-Zionism to anti-Semitism (which itself is a sloppy term since all of the Canaanites are Semites, including that one persistent tribe). There are no holy lands or holy people. "God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham" etc.

Doesn't matter, if your mother is a Jew, then you are a Jew. There's black Jews and Chinese Jews. Maybe in the 23rd Century there will be Vulcan Jews, which would be funny considering the Leonard Nimoy angle.

Turns out she helped develop BASIC at Dartmouth College, which I learned as a wee lass in December 1978 on a Trash 80 and still use from time to time. Microsoft got started when Bill Gates ported BASIC to the 8008 Microprocessor hobbyists used in the Altair, which you had to build from a kit. Mid to late Seventies, early Eighties, everything was on BASIC. You had to write tight code and make assembly language calls to get it to fit in the itty bitty RAM everyone had and run reasonably fast, this had the effect of warping the minds of the early adopters. We write spaghetti code that no one can read because we didn't have the resources to document everything and make everything spaced out and indented neat. Kids these days, however, code like old people fuck. That's why it took nine years for Microsoft to come up with a halfway decent replacement for XP.

Yesterday, I was in San Antonio to witness my son's graduation and swearing in as a member of the USAF. It was one of the prouder moments of my life. As long as the United States produces fine young men and women, who voluntarily serve, all is not lost. May G-d bless the United States of America and protect her from all enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC.

Congratulations, allen, and in eight years when his reserve obligations are finished (assuming he doesn't become a lifer) I'd like to welcome him to the proud ranks of we'uns veteran assholes. The mortgage guarantee benefit and GI Bill are particularly wonderful bits of assholery.

The history of Israel's relations with Guatemala roughly parallels that of its ties with El Salvador except the Guatemalan military was so unswervingly bloody that Congress never permitted the ... Reagan Administration to undo the military aid cutoff implemented during the Carter years.

Weaponry for the Guatemalan military is the very least of what Israel has delivered. Israel not only provided the technology necessary for a reign of terror, ...... it helped in the organization and commission of the horrors perpetrated by the Guatemalan military and police.

And even beyond that: to ensure that the profitable relationship would continue, Israel and its agents worked actively to maintain Israeli influence in Guatemala.

Throughout the years of untrammeled slaughter that left at least 45,000 dead, and, by early 1983, one million in internal exile - mostly indigenous Mayan Indians, who comprise a majority of Guatemala's eight million people - and thousands more in exile abroad, Israel stood by the Guatemalan military.

Three successive military governments and three brutal and sweeping campaigns against the Mayan population, described by a U.S. diplomat as Guatemala's "genocide against the Indians ...," had the benefit of Israeli techniques and experience, as well as hardware.

The problem, it came out on Hugh Hewitt yesterday, was that Obama got everyone, Democrats and Republicans alike, to agree not to take their disagreements over the ongoing government shutdown issue to the media, but to keep it in house. Then the Democrats proceeded with their strategy not to negotiate at all. In-house indeed. You can see that the advantage was all on the side of the Donks, even if you disregard the fact that the media is largely in the tank for them already. The Pubs were outmaneuvered. Classic political poker.

Farmer Fudd is a fascist, he is a racist, he is a misogynist.Farmer Fudd is a Welfare King, garnering his sustenance from Federal land grants and welfare payments.Farmer Fudd is a coward, one that ran away from his duty to protect the US, in its time of need.

Farmer Fudd supports the Murder of Jews by the government of the secular state of Israel.Farmer Fudd wants to limit liberty and forget about the freedoms that are the hallmark of the American Way.

Anyone who wishes to embrace the character, call him their own, is welcome to do so.But they do not gain an equity interest in the character when they use it.

if someone were to obtain a Google sign-on and utilize Farmer Fudd as their avatar, well. in that case ...... I'd gladly relinquish my rights to the fascist Farmer Fudd.

(I was going to use the T--- word but I didn't want to waste the first time I got deleted on this blog on something as silly as your post.)

While it is true that I enjoy arguing, you and I have been going around for so long that it has lost its entertainment value. Now when I challenge one of your posts, it is merely when the conclusions you draw diverge from the manifest reality of the real world and cross over to Rufus-world.

One who wishes to understand the state of the economy really needs to understand "this:"

Since late 2007 the monetary base has risen more than 300 percent, while GDP and consumer prices have risen less than 20 percent. And no, the disconnect is not all due to the 0.25 percent interest rate the Fed pays on reserves.

Besides, there is a lot of Teddy Roosevelt wisdom, from the 1907 era that rings true, today.

100 years has gone by, and not much has changed ...... the wealth of the country is as concentrated now, as it was then.

Despite the "Socialism" of FDR, LBJ or BHO.

Taxes are higher, Federal revenue as a percentage of GDP is higher.Standard of living is higher.

Government Revenue started out at the beginning of the 20th century at seven percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). As you can see from Chart 3.22, the federal share of that revenue was modest, at 2.71 percent of GDP. State revenue was a modest 0.76 percent of GDP and local revenue was 3.56 percent of GDP.

But this relationship was not to last. The federal income tax was passed in 1913 and federal revenue rose rapidly in World War I, peaking at 8.4 percent of GDP in 1921 as total government revenue peaked at 14.6 percent of GDP.

For the rest of the 1920s government revenue held at about 11 to 12 percent of GDP, ...... but tax increases at the nadir of the Great Depression increased the government take to 19.1 percent in 1933 (5.78 percent Federal, 4.19 percent State and 9.16 percent Local)

... and 20.3 percent in 1938 right after the 1937 recession (8.39 percent federal, 5.36 percent State and 6.56 percent Local).

The trend was clear; taxing power was moving from the local level up to state governments and to the federal government.

The question which has lingered ...When a person is so centered upon "Identity Politics"

That the "Identity" becomes the character of the man, .... as illustrated by our own Farmer Fudd ..And when the core value of the "Identity", that of the entire tribe, is proven to be a lie ...Proven to be a "False Identity", ......how does that effect the fellow that is so fully invested in the Identity, as to self identify with it, body and soul?

Wretchard has re-instated my deleted post that someone "reported" for "abuse". All I said was, referring to the KSA's decision to decline a seat at the UNSC, "I don't know what Saudi Arabia's problem is. The Security Council has never allowed Israel to come to the table. Sounds like the perfect country club for emirs." It was probably Porky, who has absolutely no sense of humor at all, and probably didn't even laugh when Woody Allen explained a photograph of a 1970's bra-burning to people in the 22nd Century ("...notice that it's a very small fire...")

A 1.8 million-year-old human skull dramatically simplifies the textbook story of human evolution, suggesting what were thought to be three distinct species of early human (Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis and Homo erectus) was just one.

the Khan Mamai recruited a large horde in 1380, whose size is estimated between 125,000 and 300,000. In addition to the Mongol horsemen, its ranks included Polovtsy, Khazar Turks, Circassians, Yasses, Armenians and ...... a continent of Genoese mercenaries from the Crimea. They advanced, expecting to be joined en route by additional contingents ...... arranged by advance with Prince Yagailo of Lithuania and Prince Oleg of Ryazan.

The Russian army, estimated from 80,000 to 150,000 strong, marched to the river Don to meet them. Grand Prince Dmitri convened a council of war, and all the princes voted to cross the river and give battle on the open fields beyond.The next morning, the Russians filed across the bridge and into the Kulikovo Podye, where Dmitri arrayed his army in three lines.

An outpost regiment was placed in advance across the front of the Russian army. Then the main line was composed of a large central regiment, with smaller regiments covering each flank, their flanks covered by woods in turn. A third line comprising the reserve deployed in the rear in the fields adjacent to the River Neprayadva.

Acting on the counsel of his strategist, Dmitri Bodrok, Prince of Volynia, the Grand Prince concealed a picked force of cavalry ........ under Vladimir, Prince of Serpukhov, in the woods adjacent to his left flank, covering his line of retreat.

Arriving on the field, Mamai deployed his horde opposite the Russian front. The battle opened just before noon with a single combat between Alexander Peresvet, a Russian monk, and the Mongol champion Temir-murza.

They charged with lances; both striking killing blows on the first pass. Temir-murza fell from his saddle, while Peresvet's body remained mounted, ........ which the Russians took as a favorable omen for the battle to come.

In the ensuing three hour battle, Mamai pressed home with his superior numbers, ...... overrunning and destroying the Russian advance regiment and striking hard against the main Russian battle line. The Russian line held, giving and taking heavy casualties. Gradually, however, the flanking regiment began to give ground, ....... either due to the heavy Mongol pressure or by prearranged tactic.

Seeing the retrograde movement, Mamai committed his reserves and the Russian left wing began to swing backward as if on a hinge. Prince Dmitri committed his reserves to stabilize the flank but they made little headway against the surging Mongol horde. At that key juncture, with the Mongols now attacking the crumbling Russian line from the flank,

Prince Vladimir and his elite horsemen emerged from concealment in the wood and fell on the rear of the Mongol columns. Taken by surprise, the Mongols broke and fled. The Russian cavalry pursued until nightfall, killing tens of thousands in flight. His horde effectively destroyed, Mamai escaped only to be poisoned while in exile in Crimea.

The Russian losses were so heavy it reputedly took seven days to gather the bodies for burial.

The victory, however, was considered decisive. Grand Prince Dmitri took the moniker Donsky ("of the Don") in honor of the victory. Russian historians marked the battle as a turning point in Russia's struggle with the Horde.

Khan Tokhtamysh was able to regroup the Golden Horde, however, and launch a devastating raid into Russia in 1381 that ended only after the Russian princes agreed to resubmit to his suzerainty.

... consisted of a series of campaigns by the Mongol Empire against Korea, then known as Goryeo, from 1231 to 1259.Six major campaigns took place at tremendous cost to civilian lives throughout the Korean Peninsula, ...... ultimately resulting in Korea becoming a tributary ally of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty for approximately 80 years. In 1350, Goryeo succeeded in throwing off the Mongol tributary yoke.

Goryeo faced the first life and death test as a unified nation on the Korean Peninsula. Standing at the twilight in its dynastic cycle, Koreans rose to support their country even though a dictatorship ruled with a cruel hand in the royal court. The Buddhist community rose to meet the challenge, as they later rose during Japan's invasion of Korea in the late 1500s, ...... monks fighting in the Hwarang tradition to repel the invading Mongols.

Eventually, after 40 years of invasions and 80 years of tributary rule, Goryeo survived as a unified nation.

The Initial Campaigns

Goryeo's first contact with the Mongols had been friendly. They cooperated to defeat the Khitans who had caused turmoil in northern Goryeo for two years.

Khitan surrendered to a combined Mongol-Goryeo force, leading the Mongols to force a tributary status on Goryeo requiring a heavy annual tribute ...... from 1219 which on occasion Gojong of Goryeo (r. 1213-1259), who reigned as the twenty-third king of the Goryeo dynasty, ....... refused to pay. In 1225, the Koreans killed the Mongol envoy Chu-ku-yu while traveling back to China.

In 1231, using the killing of Chu-ku-yu as a pretext, Ögedei Khan ordered the invasion of Korea.

The Mongol general Sartaq met determined resistance in Kuseong, redirecting his forces toward the capital city of Kaeseong. In 1232, the Imperial Court of Goryeo moved from Songdo to Ganghwa Island in the Bay of Gyeonggi, ...... and started the construction of significant defenses to prepare for the Mongol threat.

The Mongols protested the move, and immediately launched a second attack.

Although they reached parts of the southern peninsula, the Mongols failed to capture Ganghwa Island, experiencing defeat in Gwangju.

A monk Kim Yun-Hu (김윤후) killed the Mongol leader Sartai (撒禮塔) in strong civilian resistance at Yongin in 1232, forcing the Mongols to withdraw again. That represents the only known occasion of the commander of a Mongol Army being killed in battle. ...

... Before the Mongols finally departed Goryeo, they launched six invasions.

Health care wasn't the only area where the federal government launched an exchange this month designed to fix a broken system.

Gary Gensler (The Washington Post)

On Oct. 2, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) oversaw the launch of “swap execution facility" platforms. Called the “future of derivatives trading” by Bloomberg, these platforms are the culmination of reforms in Dodd-Frank designed to bring price transparency to the opaque and dark over-the-counter derivatives market that helped cause the financial crisis.

And, unlike the health-care exchanges in Obamacare, these electronic platforms launched without any notable problems. The Wall Street Journal reported no significant glitches, as roughly $462 billion in interest-rate swaps and $26 billion worth of credit derivatives were traded in these swap execution facilities (SEFs) in the first week alone.

To better understand both the launch of this crucial part of financial reform, as well as how the status of derivatives reform is going more broadly, I spoke with Gary Gensler, the chairman of the CFTC. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Afghanistan was occupied by Sultan ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad, the Khwārezm-Shah. The territories of the Khwārezm-Shah dynasty extended from Chinese Turkistan in the east to the borders of Iraq in the west.

The Mongol invasion

Genghis Khan invaded the eastern part of ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn’s empire in 1219. Avoiding a battle, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn retreated to a small island in the Caspian Sea, where he died in 1220. Soon after ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn’s death, his energetic son Jalāl al-Dīn Mingburnu rallied the Afghan highlanders at Parwan (modern Jabal os Sarāj),...... near Kabul, and inflicted a crushing defeat on the Mongols under Kutikonian.

Genghis Khan, who was then at Herāt, hastened to avenge the defeat and laid siege to Bamiyan. There Ṃutugen, the khan’s grandson, was killed, an event so infuriating to Genghis Khan that when he captured the citadel he ordered ...... that no living being be spared. Bamiyan was utterly destroyed.

Advancing on Ghazna, Genghis won a great victory over Jalāl al-Dīn, who then fell back toward the Indus (1221), ...... where he made a final but unsuccessful stand.

After Genghis Khan’s death in 1227, his vast empire fell to pieces. In Afghanistan some local chiefs succeeded in establishing independent principalities, ...... and others acknowledged Mongol princes as suzerains. This state of affairs continued until the end of the 14th century, when Timur (Tamerlane) conquered a large part of the country.

Timur’s successors, the Timurids (1405–1507), were great patrons of learning and the arts who enriched their capital city ...... Herāt with fine buildings. Under their rule Afghanistan enjoyed peace and prosperity.

Early in the 16th century the Turkic Uzbeks rose to power in Central Asia under Muḥammad Shaybānī, who took Herāt in 1507. In late 1510 the Ṣafavid shah Ismāʿīl I besieged Shaybānī in Merv and killed him. Bābur, a descendant of Genghis Khan and Timur, had made Kabul the capital of an independent principality in 1504. He captured Kandahār in 1522, and in 1526 he marched on Delhi.

He defeated Ibrāhīm, the last of the Lodī Afghan kings of India,...... and established the Mughal Empire, ...

... which lasted until the middle of the 19th century and included all of eastern Afghanistan south of the Hindu Kush. The capital was at Agra. Nine years after his death in 1530, the body of Bābur was taken to Kabul for burial.

During the next 200 years Afghanistan was parceled between the Mughals of India and the Ṣafavids of Persia—the former holding Kabul north to the southern foothills of the Hindu Kush and the latter, Herāt and Farāh. Kandahār was in dispute for many years.

Well, what else are we going to do with this expensive military machine we built and maintain to stop the Russian tanks from crossing Belgium into West Germany and France? What are we supposed to do, tell the constituents they have to be let go from their jobs at Raytheon and shit?

While the US was advancing across the globe, building over 900 military bases, spread hither and yon around the world.With a military force of unsurpassed destructive capacity across any landmass ....above, upon and beneath the seven seas ....

• Four million Palestinians in the Occupied Territories lack the right to vote for the government that controls their lives through a military occupation.

In addition to controlling the borders, air space, water, tax revenues, and other vital matters pertaining to the Occupied Territories, Israel alone issues the identity cards that determine the ability of Palestinians to work and their freedom of movement.

• About 1.2 million Palestinian Israelis, who make up 20 percent, or one-fifth, of Israel’s population, have second-class citizenship within Israel, ... ... which defines itself as a Jewish state rather than a state for all its citizens.

More than 20 provisions of Israel’s principal laws discriminate, either directly or indirectly, against non-Jews, according to Adalah: The Legal Center for Minority Rights in Israel.

Millions of Palestinians remain refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere, unable to return to their former homes ...... and land in present-day Israel.

Even though the right of return for refugees is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

• Four million Palestinians in the Occupied Territories lack the right to vote for the government that controls their lives through a military occupation.

Actually they do vote.

They voted IN Hamas in Gaza and they voted in Abbas in the West Bank.

The Palestinians have elections for the governments that DO CONTROL THEIR LIVES.

If the Government of the Palestinian would stop firing rockets, sponsoring terror and murder the people who live in the lands on which the palestinians live would have a higher quality of life. But they do vote when their leaders CHOOSE to have elections.

The PA has a seat at the UN. Is a member of several important and major state/nation organizations.

As soon as the PA and Hamas are winning to compromise and make peace and stop murder and terror?? They can expect all sorts of benefits. But as long as the Palestinians CHOOSE Leaders that support war? Their lives will suck.

For political Zionism to come to fruition – for a Jewish state to be created in Palestine –it was necessary to carry out as large a scale as possible ethnic cleansing of the country’s unwanted Arab natives. But even in 1948, and especially in 1967, Israel was unable to fully ‘cleanse’ the land of the Palestinians. As a result, Israel’s fallback position was to implement an apartheid regime of exclusion and discrimination.

Where the dispossession had been most effective – inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders –apartheid could be less explicit. But in the OPT, home to a vast majority of Palestinians, Israeli apartheid had to be overt and iron-fisted.

In Part II, we will examine conditions for Palestinians living in both Israel and the OPT.”

They start building ethanol distilleries, photovoltaic electric grids, transmission lines. wind mills, solar/sodium chloride power stations.Replace the bridges that are falling down.Build health clinics in MississippiImprove the water infrastructure and 4G grids across North AmericaRe-prioritize.

First, the thermal energy of concentrated sunlight can be stored in the heat capacity of a molten salt (the liquid form of an ionic compound like sodium chloride) at a high temperature. When electricity is needed later, heat is transferred from the molten salt to water, using a heat exchanger to generate steam to drive a turbine.

In a new interview with Deutsche Welle, the CEO of a Germany-based global solar developer made a good case for the potential for solar power to become cheaper than coal sooner rather than later. That would be Bernhard Beck, CEO of BELECTRIC. In the interview Beck had some interesting things to say about the direction of the global solar market and the potential for growth in large-scale solar power generating plants, and if anything, we think his forecast could come true even sooner than he thinks.

BELECTRIC specializes in utility-scale solar power plants as well as rooftop solar, and the former area is where the focus of the Deutsche Welle interview takes place.

According to Beck, large scale solar power in Germany is already “approaching the costs” of conventional power, at 10 euro cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh).

Beck was reluctant to lay out a specific timetable, but he did predict that with additional technological improvements, the cost of solar power in Germany (and by extension, other relatively sun-poor countries), will ultimately fall below the cost of conventional energy.

He foresees a much shorter time span in “sun-rich” countries, where the trend is rapidly moving in the direction of solar power for less than 10 euro cents per kWh. That could put solar power below the cost of wind power as well as coal or gas.

However, Beck indicates that these countries have some obstacles to overcome. By “sun-rich” he means countries with a less developed transmission infrastructure, which puts large scale power plants at a disadvantage in terms of operating costs. Also contributing to higher operating costs is the characteristic dust-heavy environment of the “sun-rich” countries to which he refers, which translates into higher costs for cleaning and maintaining solar panels.

Another factor that could affect future cost parity is transportation. The shortest line between a solar power plant and its fuel supply is, literally, the shortest distance between two points. Compare that to coal, which is increasingly making a laborious international trek across oceans, into congested inland shipping routes.Some of these factors are already coming into play in the US, where earlier this year the El Paso Electric Company and First Solar collaborated in a major deal to sell solar-generated electricity for less than coal (the First Solar price was reported as 5.8 cents per kWh and “new” coal is currently in the 10-14 cent range).

Earlier this spring we noted that Moody’s foresees dark skies ahead for conventional thermal power plants in Europe due to the strength of the renewables sector. Just about the only thing keeping the conventional sector afloat is the need to satisfy peak demand, but the rapid development of advanced energy storage solutions could make that a moot point sooner rather than later.

That naturally includes utility scale energy storage, ranging from pumped hydro to a massive dry cell battery array in Texas.

Aside from that, small-scale energy storage is also rapidly emerging as a big time player in the peak demand game. Aside from the potential for storing energy from rooftop solar arrays in the form of fuel cells, Navigant is one research company that foresees growth in the use of electric vehicle batteries to store energy for peak periods.

Here in the US you can see that EV/peak energy storage trend hard at work in Ford’s MyEnergi Lifestyle system, which recently upped the ante by partnering with the major US home builder KB Home’s ZeroHouse 2.0.

And since you regulars know that CleanTechnica is all over the US military’s adoption of advanced clean technology, let’s not fail to mention that the Department of Defense kicked off 2013 by announcing a $20 million EV leasing program that will involve 500 vehicles integrated with energy storage, smart grid and renewable energy generating systems.

Anybody with any sense, at all, can see where we're heading, Rat. Whether they want to admit it, or not.

The much more interesting question is: what does it mean for the folks? Jobs? It doesn't take many workers to maintain a solar farm, once it is up and running (and, these things are going to run for a long time.) And, about the same thing can be said for wind turbines. Except for replacing the bearings every twenty or thirty years, or whatever, there just isn't much going on there "maintenance-wise."

And, yeah, yeah, you can find where some of the older turbines had quite a lot of maintenance problems, but, basically, those were prototypes. There's no telling how long the newer ones will run w/o major repairs.

Video games are much more entertaining than the NFL.Participation vs mindless fat ass viewing

That's what that Robert Reich fellow said in the PBS interview.

WPA style projects?Everyone blogs for fees?

Who knows, but the days of high pay employment are coming to an end.There may be "Islands of Industry" ...... where electric power is cheap, in the Grand Coulee impact area.Places where the sun shines bright, the "Sun Belt".

Wrong again, diseased buffalo breath. It all depends on the Voltage. The Big, Interstate lines have a lot less loss.

Transmitting electricity at high voltage reduces the fraction of energy lost to resistance, which varies depending on the specific conductors, the current flowing (measured in kilo-Amperes (kA.)) and the length of the transmission line. For example, a 100 mile 765 kV line carrying 1000 MW of energy can have losses of 1.1% to 0.5%. A 345 kV line carrying the same load across the same distance has losses of 4.2%

“Bombing as a Policy Tool in Vietnam” . . . . . . . by Robert E. Biles examines the effectiveness of the bombing of North Vietnam in achieving the goals set for it .... . . by those involved in making the air war policy. Focusing on the period of intense bombing from 1965 to 1968, the study examines the intelligence and defense community’s . . . . . own “in-house” studies of the air war.

It finds that of the five major goals set for the bombing only one has been achieved. The bombing has succeeded in making North Vietnam pay a high price for her support of the war in the South. But the air war has not stopped the flow of supplies to the South, broken Hanoi’s will, or . . .. . . forced the North Vietnamese to negotiate an end to the war.

The gains in US and South Vietnamese morale from escalation of the bombing have always proved fleeting. There are several reasons for the failure of the bombing to achieve its goals. North Vietnam, . . .. . . an agricultural country with little industry, provides few major targets for air attack; the North Vietnamese have proved highly determined and extremely resourceful in adapting to the damage done by the bombing; ...... and North Vietnam’s allies have provided sufficient aid to more than offset the losses from the bombing.

Throughout the war, the claims made for strategic and interdiction bombing have consistently exceeded their accomplishments,...... and the extravagance of the rhetoric supporting the current air offensive against the North has a familiar ring.

The bombing of North Vietnam has been a costly one in terms of pilots lost, civilian casualties, damage to our international standing, and riches expended. The failure of the bombing to achieve the goals set for it makes that high cost a very sad waste.

The kind of agriculture that relies on slaves also doesn't bother to replenish the nitrogen that's taken out of the ground with every bale of cotton. They landowners would rape the land, keep moving west, and finally clean out the Big Valley in California like a cloud of locusts. Meanwhile the blacks would breed and breed until it was everything the CSA could do to keep them from taking over. Eventually they would, and the entire South, coast to coast, would be one giant Haiti.

"Three years ago by a little reflection and patience they could have had a hundred years of peace and prosperity, but they preferred war; very well. Last year they could have saved their slaves, but now it is too late.

Magnificent Ronald and the Founding Fathers of al Qaeda

“These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.” — Ronald Reagan while introducing the Mujahideen leaders to media on the White house lawns (1985). During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. We repeated the insanity with ISIS against Syria.